Oh I’m a mess right now, inside out.

It’s only after recess week and my semester just took a turn for the worst. A series of events happened and I really feel bad about the way I took it in my stride.

First of all, midterm results were not satisfactory. I performed slightly below average for both papers. Given that I only had two papers to prepare for, this was a total letdown.

Seriously, I had a week to prepare for two papers and I performed lower than par for both?

Next up would be the preparations for technical interviews. Having done a summer of software engineering, my algorithmic thinking skills have more or less degraded. It’s true that the foundation from CS2020 will get me back up to speed in no time, but I should keep in mind to do some algorithm exercises every once in a while to warm myself up again.

Lastly, I have serious issues with my CS2105 assignments. 50% for the first assignment because I submitted it with the wrong file name, while another 50% gone because I used some boilerplate code online for the second assignment. I got 2 more assignments to go and hopefully it will go better than the first 2.

Why do I write posts like these every once in a while? It probably makes me feel that I am doing some reflection on my life, and to some extent make myself feel better about the situation I’m in right now. Which is exactly what these posts allow me to do, calm down.

Here are my three re-evaluated priorities for the remaining 4-5 weeks of the semester:

Letterbox – my CS3216 baby

This project is what makes this semester so much more worth it. Having a project that I care about to work on. Not going to reveal too much about it here, but here’s the awesome logo that my teammate designed:

Really excited to ship this by Monday night if possible!

Technical Interviews

There will be a bout of interviews heading my way soon and I need to be prepared for them. That means to revise my algorithms as much as possible, and get familiar explaining them to people. There’s a couple of ways I can do this. 1. Do as much Hackerrank problems as possible, or 2. Go through my CS2020 concepts once more. (I still have my cheatsheet with me)

Or a combination of both if I have the time. I think the latter should be a better option since I need a serious refresher on my basic algorithms & data structures.

Academics

I’ve been neglecting this aspect of school a lot this semester. Putting in only minimal efforts for my other modules. Perhaps it’s time to start revising for finals considering that I am lagging behind in the first place. Set up a timetable to see how much time I have left again and proceed on from there.

I once told myself that “having poor results for other modules due to CS3216 is bullshit.” I still think that is the case and I’m not willing to give my results up for this semester. It is possible to have the best for both and the only reason why it is not happening is because I have not been trying hard enough.